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4. Will election-monitoring by citizens and other organizations,
especially the mass media and educational institutions,
contribute to making politicians more qualified?

The Second Challenge:
A Balance in Democracy

Constitution drafters regard building a balance of power among
various political institutions as one of their most crucial tasks. Most of
Thailand’s previous constitutions reflected attempts to redesign power
relationships to ensure there was a balance in the exercise of power
and a system of checks and balances among political institutions that
would create a way out of Thailand’s political problems. The 1997
Constitution, for example, strengthened the executive and political
parties with the aim of solving the problem of a lack of political
stability. The 2007 Constitution enhanced the system of checks and
balances to deal with Thailand’s political crisis during that period. Yet
the attempts to redesign power relationships failed to fix the country’s
political problems. The 2017 Constitution has, therefore, been drafted to
set up mechanisms to reorganize and strengthen governance. That is, a
stronger check and balance system has been designed to allow both
organizations under the Constitution and the public to monitor the
operations of political institutions and their use of power.

As the power relationship design in the 2017 Constitution is
intended to resolve Thailand’s political crisis, the issues to consider
further are whether the intent will be actualized in implementation and
under what circumstances can a balance of power be created to suit
the Thai context to strengthen governance and allow sustainable
development of a democratic regime.

Issues for group discussion

1. The design of power relationships between political institutions
under the Constitution resolving Thailand’s political crisis and
achieving sustainable development of a democratic regime.

สาระสำคัญและประเด็นหลักในการประชุมกลุมยอย